Antivirus USB Flash Drives: ClamWin

You're on the road a lot and like to use your USB flash drives on different computers? You take computer security seriously and you have the habit of scanning both your USB flash drives and your host computer for viruses on a regular basis? Let's hope so, or else you'd better start to protect yourself and your USB flash drives against malicious software and computer viruses asap!

We're glad to introduce to you a solid and powerful open source solution that enables you to scan your PC and/or your USB flash drive by running a portable application straight and conveniently from your USB thumbdrive.

Learn more about the benefits of using this powerful antivirus solution for USB flash drives, iPhones and other portable media devices which is also completely open source and purely copyleft GPL licensed...

An important thing to keep in mind when using USB flash drives is that they can be used to spread viruses or malware between computers. You need to protect your valuable data, files and your private information.

Especially when you use your USB flash drives in public places like your school, university or in an internet cafe it's very important to take security seriously and take the necessary steps to protect your privacy.

Because unknown host computers and untrusted machines may compromise your data, you should always use a solid antivirus program on your primary PC. Also, it's important to update the virus definitions regularly. This way you can ensure that you well protected against the newest bad-warez, viruses and malware out there, and you'll be able to keep both your USB flash drives and your computers clean while protecting your data. So what do you do need to protect yourself?

You need a solid antivirus solution for portable SSDs, iPods and USB flash drives.
Our suggestion: ClamWin Portable.

ClamWin is a widely recognized open source antivirus scanner that is based on the ClamAV engine, a state of the art open source (GPL) anti-virus toolkit for UNIX that was originally designed especially for e-mail scanning and for usage on mail spools and email gateways.

Among the many features of ClamWin you'll find characteristics of a mature and sophisticated antivirus solution that is very well suitable for USB flash drives and other portable memory media such as MP3 players and iPhones. These include the following features:

• High detection rates for viruses and spyware
• Scanning Scheduler
• Automatic downloads of regularly updated Virus Database
• Standalone virus scanner and right-click menu integration to Microsoft Windows Explorer
• Addin to Microsoft Outlook to remove virus-infected attachments automatically

In order to benefit the most from ClamWin features it's recommended that you scan your USB flash drives, your computers, netbooks and portable drives for viruses on a regular basis.

You should assume that any unknown computer that you use in an unknown or untrusted environment could be infected with a virus. Therefore you should scan your USB flash drive for viruses after having used an untrusted computer, and when you first plug your portable drive into another computer.

This way the virus will not be able to spread, as you'll detect the virus and quarantine it immediately and before you run your applications from the USB flash drives. The new computer will not be infected, and your USB flash drives stays free of virus and malware!

Remember to always wait until the drive access light has stopped blinking and then click the icon in your system tray to 'Safely Remove' your device. Never pull out a USB flash drive from a machine without "Safely Removing" first. This could damage the USB flash drive and you could loose your data!

Speaking of which - do you know the first rule of computer security?

It says this: back up your data on a regular basis!

For better redundancy you should make sure that you have several backups of the same files safely stored in several locations. Also, you should always make sure to encrypt your backups e.g with thepowerful encryption software such as TrueCrypt which is also suitable for usage on USB flash drives.

Once you start to follow these basic rules, you'll be able to enjoy running your applications from a USB flash drive without getting stuck with viruses or losing your data.

Note that we furbish your wholesale volumes of USB flash drives preloaded with ClamWin or any other GPL licensed open source software again a small service charge for the data preloading.

Ask your MemoTrek account manager for more information!

Those who really are concerned about privacy should certainly consider to run a Linux distribution with a strong security focus from their USB flash drives, such as a modified Damn Small Linux or Pendrive Linux, or even better a special and hardened Debian version that boots directly from your USB flash drive.

Stay tuned here at MemoTrek and we'll bring you more news on how to achieve a good level of security using such a USB flash drive with a pre-loaded Linux operating system!